veiled references

[winterbadger]

I caught the beginning of the Diane Rehm Show this morning, but didn't hear the bulk of it. Her first segement was on the wearing by Muslim women of the full-face veil (the niqab, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqab) in Western countries and Western reaction to it, particularly in light of controversies arising in the UK and US over non-Mulsims' perceptions and reactions to it.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about the issues involved; I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts. Do you feel the suggestion by MP Jack Straw that constituents visiting his office remove their niqab to be reasonable or unreasonable? Do you think that the PM was wrong to say that the veil is a sign of separation? Do you believe that niqabis ought not to be required to bare their face to teach, or to identify themselves to police?

I'll use my Pakistan icon, as it's the only Islamic one I have.

Comments

[principia.livejournal.com]

Without treading back over the ground some of the other commenters have gone over, except to say that I agree pretty much in toto with Anne Applebaum's op-ed, I would say that the fundamental root of the problem is the sense that "the West" gets that modern immigrants (most particularly Muslims in Europe and Hispanics here in the States) are extremely hypocritical when it comes to cultural sensitivity.

The perception is that entire burden of compromising existing social mores is placed upon the societies that these folks claim to want to join, rather than it being a process of assimilation and recombination as the West has historically practiced. And in the case of some groups of immigrants, including both Muslims and Hispanics, some of the cultural traditions that are in question involve taking gigantic steps backward in the realm of civil rights, especially for women.

Is the niqab a symbol of separatism? Yes. Should women have a right to wear one if it's what they want, and it doesn't materially interfere with their job or cause a security risk? Sure. But I wouldn't place it on the same level as someone wearing a cross pendant or a yarmulke, because it involves fundamentally eliminating one of the primary ways in which homo sapiens communicates.